


Reboot

by laireshi



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Superior Iron Man, holy shit what's happened to Tony?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4485115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony isn't himself. Reed has to fix that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reboot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Comicsohwhyohwhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicsohwhyohwhy/gifts).



> Happy REALLY LATE birthday!
> 
> Thanks, missbecky ;)
> 
> This is set in the same verse as [this little drabble](http://laireshi.tumblr.com/post/88611512357/altreedalttony-drabble).

Reed sees it on his tablet when he's in Necropolis.

Tony stayed in New York, because he's had his own things to work on and he's even more picky when it comes to lab space than Reed is. He kissed Reed goodbye and Reed left. But then Red Skull attacked—and Tony said he was fine, that he didn't need help.

Reed should've known never to trust these words.

He watches as Red Skull casts a spell and the shockwave hits the assembled heroes—hits Tony. He watches as it takes him a beat too long to get back up.

He watches the recording cut to a footage of Tony with a drink in his hand, smiling too wide and too fake.

Reed gets in the Fantasticar without so much as telling T'Challa he's leaving.

***

"He's not here," Sue says when Reed enters the living room hours later.

He frowns. "What happened?"

"It was Avengers and X-Men. Tony was helping them. Now they're all—changed."

Changed isn't good. Changed doesn't tell Reed anything. Was it magic? Mind-control tech? Telepathy?

How can he fix it?

"I have to find him," he says.

Sue winces. "He's in the Hamptons. I tried to talk to him. It's ugly, Reed. Maybe he'll listen to you, but . . . I wouldn't hope."

Sue is better at communication than him. Reed knows that. She's one of the best friends he has. She's close with Tony too. But . . . He twirls the ring on his finger. Tony made it out of a melted down fragment of his first armour. He promised to spend his life with Reed. He would listen.

***

The music is almost too loud. The lights are dim. Reed pushes his way through the crowd, making himself much thinner, to Tony, sitting on the sofa with a drink in his hand and laughing at a woman next to him. Reed feels a pang at the sight.

Tony's drunk, this much is obvious. Reed feels lost. He's never really understood why Tony did that, but he knows Tony hates that part of himself. Why would he drink again now?

"Tony," he says when he's close enough Tony will hear.

Tony turns to him. "My dear husband," he says. It sounds like he's mocking him.

This is not Tony, Reed tells himself, and refuses to feel hurt. They've dealt with mind control, or whatever this is, before.

"Shoo," Tony says to the woman, and she obligingly walks away.

Reed coughs to cover how uncomfortable he feels. "Come home," he says.

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Why? I'm enjoying myself. Don't you want a drink?"

"Tony," Reed repeats.

"I've been missing out all these years," Tony mused. "I should send Red Skull flowers."

Reed doesn't know how to talk to this Tony, and it's unsettling. Tony's the one person who never made him feel confused. This is not him. Reed should look at it like a science experiment.

Except, he's pretty sure he'd have to knock Tony out now to get him home and run scans on him and fix him, and he didn't come here prepared for that.

It was always Tony's job to foresee the future.

Reed leaves. Tony laughs after him.

***

The world is ending, and the world has to wait. If Reed knows one thing, it's this: he can't save it without Tony.

So he goes to the X-Men, he goes to the Avengers, he works with Bruce and Hank; he asks sorcerers and telepaths for help, and he finds a solution.

To save the world, he has to save Tony first. It's easy as that.

***

The next time he sees Tony, they stand on a battlefield, and Tony is laughing.

“Did you really think I wouldn't prepare for this?” he's asking, and Reed can't look at him.

No. No, he didn't. He thought that there was enough of Tony left in this man that he would let them change him back. He thought that there was enough of Tony left to maybe recognize Reed this time. 

He thought that if it wasn't Tony, he wouldn't know to prepare.

And it's not, it's not Tony; it's—his intellect twisted into this . . . Tony would hate to see himself like that, Reed knows that.

“Please,” he says. “Please, Tony—let me help you.”

“Do you take me for an idiot, my love?” Tony asks, and it hurts, and Reed doesn't know how to react, doesn't know how to fight Tony, doesn't know how to shield himself from him.

They've always been on one side. This, now, is possibly the only situation Reed hasn't prepared for.

He twists the ring on his finger as he thinks, _but Tony has_.

Because Tony—Tony looks to the future, and builds towards the goodness that he sees—and plans for the worst of the worst scenarios.

And this is Tony's worst fear, right here. 

Reed should've realised it sooner. He should've known to search Tony's files instead of trying to find a solution with the X-Men.

“What,” Tony says, “is that _emotions_ you can't deal with?”

This is not Tony, because Tony never made him feel like there was something wrong with him.

***

Reed is surprised, though maybe he shouldn't be, when he cracks Tony's encryption—not that hard, he _hasn't_ been protecting his files from Reed—and reads his doomsday scenarios.

Tony's solution of choice to him losing his mind is _the most effective way to disable the Iron Man armour and kill the pilot_ more often than not. 

Reed digs in further.

One of the screens in the lab is turned on some news station; images of Tony throwing wild parties in San Francisco occasionally on. He's always drunk, always surrounded by half-naked people. 

It's not Tony. It doesn't matter.

He knows Extremis code by heart—and he knows Tony must've changed it. It doesn't matter. Tony can multitask like no one else in the world, but Reed has a single goal in mind. 

He'll get Tony back.

“You should rest,” Sue says one day. “I haven't seen you like that since—”

“It's Tony,” Reed says, because she should understand that.

“And Tony won't be happy if you run yourself ragged trying to help him.”

“I need to,” Reed says. 

Sue gives him a hug. It's not as reassuring as it used to be.

“I care for him a lot,” she says, “but you're my best friend, Reed, and . . .”

He sneaks one arm around her, far enough to continue typing, and she sighs.

“Don't die here,” she says, and Reed nods.

He's gonna get Tony back.

***

The third time he sees Tony Stark in his—new persona, it's quiet and they're alone.

Reed's there prepared to actually fight him.

It's a difference.

“What now? Do you need help in research?”

“Wasn't that why you came to me?” Reed asks quietly, thinking briefly to this moment years ago when Tony needed help with the shrapnel.

Tony stands near the ceiling high window in his new tower in San Francisco. He only has his pyjama bottoms on, but Reed saw what his new armour can do, and it's even more than he accomplished with Extremis before that.

He doesn't have a chance, physically.

“I missed you,” he says, and it's not even a lie.

“Good try,” Tony snarls. “Why are you here?”

“The problem with you, Tony,” Reed says, “is that you _always_ think you're right. And yes, yes, the pot calling the kettle black, I realise that, but—well, sometimes you're wrong.”

“Yes?” Tony looks interested now.

Reed steps closer to him. Closer still. “You're so intelligent, who possibly could prove you wrong?”

“Oh, you fancy that'd be you,” Tony laughs. “Okay. Teach me. Where am I wrong?”

“Two things,” Reed whispers in his ear. The ports for Extremis are hidden at the base of Tony's neck. It's the only place that guarantees this will work. Reed winces as he slams a localised EMP on the nape of Tony's neck. Tony falls down, nothing to support him, as if he forgot he was really a human and not a computer. Reed leans over him, and it hurts him to see Tony like that.

“You wouldn't believe I'll EMP you.”

Tony is very tense, and he looks like he's in pain. _Reed's_ hurting him, he knows and hates that. He kneels next to Tony and presses a microdrive into his neck, the program uploading immediately.

Reed steps away. Tony thrashes on the floor—it hurts him—but when the program Reed wrote will be done, well—Tony will be back.

And there's the last thing to do now, when Tony can't shield himself. 

“The second is that I won't use magic if I have to.”

Reed drops the sphere Scarlet Witch gave him, and it breaks when it hits the floor just near Tony's face, magic quickly going right through him, erasing any sides of this _inversion_ , Reed's program working itself through Tony's body to make sure all the new Extremis code disappears.

It wasn't physically taxing, what he's done, but he's breathing too quickly and he doesn't know what to do. 

Tony's unconscious on the floor. Reed never wanted to hurt him.

***

“I'm sorry,” Tony says, and Reed swirls around from his tablet, extends his neck so they're noses are almost touching.

“You're back,” he says.

Tony screws his eyes shut. “I'm sorry,” he repeats. “I'm sorry, I didn't—I'm sorry.”

It takes a few seconds, but then he opens his eyes again, stares at Reed. “ _I can't feel my armour_.”

“I had to make sure you'd be in your right mind,” Reed explains.

The worst thing is how Tony only nods, doesn't even try to argue.

“I remember everything,” he says in a small voice.

Reed leans back. Tony raises his hand and lets it fall again. “I—I understand if you want a divorce,” he says.

The words feel like a slap. Worse than what Tony said when he was under the spell, because then _it wasn't him_.

And this is the point, isn't it. “It wasn't you,” Reed says.

Tony doesn't say anything at all.

Belatedly, occurs to Reed getting him back isn't as easy as writing some code.

But they'll get over it. They have to.


End file.
